#116 – NO, THIS IS NOT A PRANK CALL

I belatedly realized that this limit break was specifically made for me.

Like sure, a lot of people hated bugs and dark caverns, but plenty of others didn’t, so this couldn’t be something universal.

More importantly though… it was the timing and locations of the damn red doors. They always seemed to pop up at the perfect time to mess with me psychologically. Either to infuriate me or to be that perfect temptation to end this suffering.

“I hate this place, chat. Have I mentioned that? I don’t think I have mentioned it enough. But I hate this place. Utterly and completely. But that’s the point, isn’t it? I’m meant to ‘break my limits’ or whatever. What limits? The limits of my patience? My psychological limits? Is that really safe? Am I gonna lose it if I keep going? Should I really be doing this? Maybe I should just end it and look for something else to do,” I rambled, my voice a whisper, as I stared at the red door.

Irid123: dont you dare quit now

Irid123: you just started

KaiEbikoOfficial: maybe it really would be better to quit

JamieWasTaken3: maybe just take a break

JamieWasTaken3: eat food or somethin idk

I thought that was a great idea, so I pulled out a bit of cheese and some orange berries I’d gotten from the merchant during my training montage and began munching on it.

After what I’d just been through, a simple alien berry and a bit of cheese tasted absolutely divine.

Of course, none of this helped with my predicament.

I was still lost in a dark cave full of bugs – tiny and giant alike – with no idea where the heck the exit was. I had yet to see even a glint of anything resembling the green staircase I’d used to arrive here.

Or maybe that was yet another psychological trap? Would those stairs look different from the first ones? That could totally be it. The initial room had pretended to lay out all its rules, by showing me how the red door and the green stairs looked, and then this place had shown me identical red doors, but… it didn’t necessarily mean that the stairs would also look the same.

Fuck.

Well, no point in theorizing until I actually found it. Right now… I needed a plan.

I took a deep breath, idly burned some more tiny bugs that had skittered inside my hidey hole and then skimmed chat for some ideas.

“Okay, chat… I guess I just have to keep exploring, hoping I just find the stairs or at least a clue on where they are… From now on, no making loud sounds or shining too much light into random sleeping abominations’ eyes.”

I let out a breath.

AotoNana: Let’s go.

AotoNana: I should probably talk like this from now on.

And so I went.

Very reluctantly.

After gazing longingly at the red door a couple of times.

Luckily, the abomination seemed to have either gone too far to be heard anymore, or had settled somewhere to wait for an ambush.

Hopefully the former.

As I walked my teeth clenched at the sight of all the skittering disgustingness all around me, I tried to see if I could see any landmarks to more easily navigate this place.

I couldn’t. It was all just rocks, stone, and bugs.

Luckily, chat came in clutch, because apparently at least three different people were drawing a map, tracking where I’d walked through already and which paths I’d taken whenever the tunnels branched. I even made a new temporary group chat for them so that they could more easily share their notes and so that I could more easily keep track as well.

The only disadvantage was that I couldn’t actually see the map, since they couldn’t send pictures or anything, so I had to rely on just their words to navigate. Ugh, maybe I should have gotten the Mapmaker skill…

But regardless of my laments, we soon discovered a not-so-shocking truth.

AotoNana: It’s non-euclidean…

I grit my teeth as I looked out into the big open room extremely similar to where the abominationpede had been. Sure, it could just be a very similar looking room, but–

Kerplunk.

…

AotoNana: Dammit.

Yes, sure, it could just be an identical room, with an identical lake – of mucus – with an identical abominationpede sleeping up above, but my experience told me that this was probably the same freaking room.

In other words, I had been right about this cave being a non-euclidean maze. Or rather, George had been right. About everything, actually. Hadn’t he exactly predicted that this would be a bug-filled non-euclidean cave?

Seriously, what the hell?

And now that I thought about it, he had also been right about the final boss of the water park being a laser shark, hadn’t he?

What the heck?

Was he the damn Fate Weaver? Had I been correct about assuming that he was the one responsible for this whole isekai business like I’d assumed all the way back when I’d first hatched from that egg?

No way, right…?

…

I slowly, silently backed out of the big room, careful to avoid all the bugs around, found a relatively bug-free corner, settled myself there, and then pulled out an interface I’d only used with a handful of people so far.

Initiate voice call with user: GeorgeDoshington?

Y/N (46853 DP available)

I clicked confirm and then waited.

Call with GeorgeDoshington

Requesting voice call. Please wait…

One ring, two rings…

Call rejected.

My back straightened and I frowned as alarm bells rang in my head.

I immediately called him again.

Call rejected.

I called again.

Rejected.

Again.

This time it kept ringing without being rejected.

“I will keep calling you until you pick up…” I murmured.

Twelve rings… Thirteen rings–

He picked it up.

“U-Uhhh…” said the masculine but kind of high-pitched voice – sounding like he’d just woken up – from the other side of the call.

“George?” I murmured silently.

“Y-Yeeeas…?”

“Are you the Fate Weaver?”

There was a dull thunk sound, followed by a yelp, and a subsequent noise of rustling from the other side of the call.

“Ow! Fuc– What?! Fate Weaver?!”

“You predicted the shark boss and now you predicted the limit break to the T.”

“Wait what? Oh shit, I missed the stream!”

There was more noise from the other side of the call. Rustling, footsteps, creaking, then finally the sound of a button being pressed and then the sound of a computer fan starting up.

I stared at the call, half wondering why he hadn’t just loaded up the stream on his phone, half feeling kinda silly about calling this guy the Fate Weaver.

But no. It could all still be an act.

“Okay, okay! Wait– Shit! Huh?! Holy shit!”

“...Hello…?”

“Wait wait wait, this is not my phone!”

“What isn’t…?”

“This call!”

“...Well, yes. I’m calling you through my streamer skill.”

“Yeah, but– Fuck! Holy shit! This is so weird! You can do this with

anyone?!”

I let out a small sigh, already regretting making this call.

“You still didn’t answer…”

“What? Oh. Wait, you think I’m the Fate Weaver?! Heh! Yeah, totally! Tremble before me, mortal! Mwhahaha–”

I ended the call.

I took a deep breath, put my face into my palm, and then let out a sigh.

I felt like a complete idiot right now.

George being the Fate Weaver? Hah. I would sooner believe that someone like Spoon or RetconRanger were the Fate Weaver.

AotoNana: Never mind, chat. Let’s keep going.

And so I got up and continued trudging through the dark caves.

Without unbanning George, of course. If he was such a powerful being, he could just unban himself.

Jerk.

I continued wandering inside the caves, encountering nests of tiny spiders, giant worms, and dog-sized cockroaches. Besides the abominationpede, none of the bugs actively tried to attack me though.

I still burned or avoided them though.

Eventually, someone in chat suggested that there might be microscopic bugs around, small enough to crawl into the pores of my skin or something like that.

From then on, I couldn’t help but occasionally flash Flameguard over my entire body every so often.

Just in case.

I continued wandering inside the caves for hours and hours. The paths branched out every which way, but no matter which one I picked, I always somehow ended up in the big room with the abominationpede.

By the time I’d entered the room for the fifth time I was already at my wit’s end because of having to constantly deal with bugs and insects. Not to mention, keeping up the light with Flameguard and burning all the bugs had eaten quite a bit of my Ether. I still had my flask, but it wasn’t going to last forever.

Irid123: that thing is probably the key

Irid123: maybe the exit appears if you kill it

I let out a tired breath.

Did I really need to fight that thing? Really? It was huge! How was I supposed to win against that? Ugh…

But it genuinely felt like I had no option but to try and fight it or continue aimlessly wandering through this bug-filled labyrinth.

Both options sucked.

“...Limit Break,” I murmured under my breath almost imperceptibly.

AotoNana: Okay, fine. What’s the plan then?

AotoNana: I just don’t see any way to beat that thing.

The biggest opponent I’d ever fought was the shark and that thing was at least twenty times bigger. I wouldn’t even know where to hit it…

Wait, I had a skill for that now.

I quickly swapped Armsmaster for Analysis – which had Hunter’s eye incorporated into it – and Flameguard for Heat Vision. It plunged me into total darkness, which made me profoundly uncomfortable, but I steeled myself and activated Heat Vision for the moment.

There were thousands of dots and bigger shapes all over the place.

That was fine.

I had expected it.

No need to panic.

I only breathed a little faster because I fucking loved oxygen.

Now just to look up and…

Oh god.

That thing was even bigger than I’d thought. It was sprawled out over the entire ceiling of this room somehow, defying gravity.

It was hard to tell since it was still pitch black, but with my Heat Vision, I could see the chitin lining its long body, the numerous spike-like legs, and even the damn crooked sword collection it called its mouth.

How the hell was I supposed to…

I appraised it.

Elder Millenipede

An imitation of an extinct species of giant insects.

This is a limit beast.

Limit beast?

Like, a beast of the limit break? Does that mean that I really do have to defeat it to progress?

Dammit.

I activated Hunter’s Eye and tried looking for any weak spots.

There were two spots that seemed to shine a different hue from the normal Heat Vision colors.

Its eyes.

AotoNana: Eyes are the weak spots…

AotoNana: Is that why it reacted when I shined light into them?

Irid123: probably

Irid123: maybe shoot arrows into them?

AotoNana: I can just use my gun.

Jeofffff: nah piercing damage is better for eyes

Thanks to Efficient Hunter – a sub-skill of Analysis that told me the best attack for any given situation – I actually knew that Jeoff was right. Still though.

AotoNana: Well not like I have any arrows anyway…

AotoNana: Wait.

I rummaged in my pockets and quickly found what I was looking for – the bow I’d gotten from the archer a long time ago, combined with the pool of plasma.

AotoNana: I completely forgot about this.

AotoNana: Wait, you guys can’t see it.

AotoNana: It’s the plasma bow.

I frowned.

Well, it was a bit clunkier and I had much less experience with it than with my gun though, so it probably wouldn't be as useful as chat might think.

AotoNana: It will be my plan B, I think.

For now, I put the bow back into my backpack and took out my gun self instead.

I weighed my options for a moment before deciding to go all out right at the start.

Now, with something that big, I didn’t actually expect to kill it in one shot even if I went all out. Heck, I probably wouldn’t even damage it that much even if I put everything I had into one shot. Still, it was pretty obvious that this thing had to be the key to clearing this ‘trial of courage’. After all, what better way to test my courage than having to defeat a giant friggin insect with needle teeth?

With that said, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a moment, and then focused on my gun.

Usually, I didn’t have time to use the charged shot since I would be in the middle of a hectic fight, but this time, I could easily take a few seconds to do so.

So I began charging, turning on rocket mode and loading the shot with liquid plasma, fire, crystal shards, as well as death water. To add to that, I also used Berserker to empower my weapon, Guided Shot to make sure my hit landed, and Armor Break for extra damage.

My gun self began to glow, giving me enough light so that I could swap out Heat Vision and get Armsmaster back for that tiny bit more power.

Its glow gradually grew stronger and stronger and the noise grew louder as well. I slowly leveled my gun self to perfectly align with my target.

It felt like an eternity as the giant Millenipede was gradually illuminated and I could clearly see its black chitinous body and all its legs.

Then its eyes snapped open.

I immediately reacted by finally firing my shot, letting loose a volley of completely loaded rockets.

The Millenipede began to move just as the first of the rockets hit its right eye and everything exploded.